The youngest daughter By Cathy Song

1. The youngest daughter By Cathy Song Presented by Amina Cormier

2. About Cathy Song…….. She was born August 20, 1955. She is an Asian-American poet. She is the 1982 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her collection Picture Bride. Song now resides in Kamala, Hawaii. Song was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father, Andrew Song, worked as a Korean-American airline pilot. Her mother, Ella, was a seamstress and had immigrated from China. Song graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor's degree in 1977 and from Boston University in 1981 with a master's degree in Creative Writing. Song’s culture had a lot to do with her taking care of her mother.

3. Information on the poem • Genre : The genre of this poem is a dramatic monologue • Form: Theform of this poem is written in prose

4. The language of the poem contributes to it’s meaning because inside the poem the author uses imagery by the repetition of the fact that her mother is older and that the same steps from their everyday lives are repeated.

5. Organization Organization The poem is organized in five stanzas and each stanzas are compiled within a couple sentences.

6. The language of poem is free flowing because she uses graphic images and it is Straight forward. This poem is also real and the author doesn’t need to use big words to make the poem sound better.

7. Dramatic Context • The dramatic context of this poem is that the speaker of the poem is unhappy with her mother’s condition. She is sad and wants to run away because of her tiredness and also she has lots of stress upon her.

8. Motivation • The speaker is motivated to speak in the tone she uses because she is noticing that her mother has become older and her body is getting old as well. The speaker is really motivated because she is comparing herself to her mom and she is looking at how much her mother's body has decayed with age, and realizes that her own body is beginning to go the same way. The speaker is sad and very unhappy.

9. Theme • The theme of this poem is that it is very important, and tragic, that a woman loses her beauty. In this poem the mother is the person losing her beauty and the daughter is following the same foot steps.

10. Speaker of the poem • The speaker of the poem is the youngest daughter. This poem reveals that the speaker feels she has no station in life because she is very unhappy and feels as if she is missing out on life and she always taking care of her mother.

11. Who is the speaker talking to? • The speaker is having an internal thought because in the poem it shows no evidence of her talking to anyone.

12. During the poem • During the poem, there is a conflict but the conflict is internal because the speaker’s feeling unhappy due to her mother’s sickness. This conflict is important because it is making the speaker want to run away from home because she is stressed out and she feels she never gets to feel sun, because she is always in the house taking care of her mom. The speaker of this poem is a participant.

13. Initial Response • This poem spoke to me because it is sad to hear such a story. My response changed after reading the poem because before I read it I thought it would be about a daughter getting spoiled because as people say the youngest are spoiled but after reading it, it is the total opposite

14. New Poem I have not seen the sun in so long Take care of my mother in our home I am exhausted from all this stress Being in this house has caused so much mess All these bruises on my mothers body make me sick to my stomach I don’t think I can deal with this anymore As I put on my shoes I look at the door I cannot leave my poor mother if I wanted to So I will continue on taking care of my mother and pull through

15. IMPROVEMENTS • My new poem improves the message of the original poem by letting the reader identify the theme much easier.